


Dishonor in Choosing the Thief

by Domimagetrix



Series: Razwan Bahir, World Guardian [7]
Category: Runescape (Video Games)
Genre: Adult Language, Blood and Injury, Deviates From Canon, Manipulative Interaction (Implied), Multi, Quest Spoilers - Dishonour Among Thieves, Surprise Mosh Pit in the Cave, Zemouregal Gets Called Out On Basic Bitch Status
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 14:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17081642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Domimagetrix/pseuds/Domimagetrix
Summary: The events of Dishonour Among Thieves for Razwan's canon, and a fic salvaged from the previous botched arc. Now revised to better reflect her lore.





	Dishonor in Choosing the Thief

_It’s futile to debate_  
_With Saint Peter at the gate_  
_Made of protein milkshake and low carb intake_  
_‘Cause, all in all, you’re just another prick at the door_

Studio Killers - “Ode to the Bouncer”

 

I followed the old battlemage across the bridge and stood on the platform next to him. The world _twisted,_ the nebulae and nonsense of Death’s pocket realm displaced with a nauseating wrench by the omnipresent gloom of Draynor.

A pair of startled ravens took to the air, squawking indignation at the insult of our sudden appearance.

Nomad turned to face me, cerulean, vapor-emitting eyes narrowed, tone dismissive. “You’ve done your duty and acquitted yourself passably as Zamorak’s errand girl. I’ll teleport to Daemon-”

One sword was already free of its sheath. “-You’ll stay right with me, and we’ll be using more conventional methods.”

“You hold no authority here.”

I met his disquieting stare. “I just cashed in the favor of a lifetime with Death to get you out of there, and I’m not fucking happy about it. I could’ve seen an old friend one last time or had the chance to say goodbye to my wife, but for reasons that escape the fuck out of me, Zamorak has insisted on including you, and those other options are now history.”

I bounced the business end of my scimitar at him. “So you’re stuck with me, and with me you will fucking remain.”

He settled his weight on one foot and began sliding the other forward, his silver-blue staff canting with the promise of parallelling the ground behind him. “I don’t answer to assassins. In fact, I see nothing preventing me from ending you here and now… or did _that_ also escape you?”

I sneered at him. “It won’t be the first time I’ve seen you on the floor.” I gestured with my free hand toward the beginnings of the dead forest just north of us and the dim, fog-diffused light offered by torches lining the pathway south. “This time there’s ambience. I’ll just stand here and laugh while you and the dirt get cozy and have a romantic, candlelit conversation about which of you is older.”

With a rough and frustrated sound, Nomad stopped his slow slide into his caster’s stance and planted his staff butt-down in the dirt. “A half-completed avatar effectively treed you without your weapon - for three hours - and you had to whittle it into submission with _thrown stones._ That you made it out of there alive is tribute only to the incomprehensible good fortune afforded idiots.”

I shrugged. “It worked.”

His regard and voice were both disdainful. “Zimberfizz managed to outwit the thing in his first week with me. It took you _how many_ years to develop your level of incompetence? I’m curious.”

I huffed a cloud of warm breath into the cold air that captured a little of the torchlight before it dissipated. “The things you create are more dangerous than you are. Maybe you should focus your talents on that rather than outright combat, since it only requires one _incompetent_ to bring you down.” Fighting not to cough the humidity out of my lungs and losing, I gestured eastward. “Move it.”

He did, stiffly, setting a distance-eating pace that necessitated a half-trot to keep up and maintaining it for several miles before the communications device given me by Moia trilled from within my bag.

Digging through my kit and withdrawing it, I spoke to the little golden grate over the box. “I’m here.”

Moia’s deep but pleasant voice responded. “Good. Have you retrieved Nomad yet?”

I nodded, then felt foolish. A unicorn - one of the docile, solitary herbivores that’d taken to the woods here - paused in cropping the grass to stare at us, and I watched it rather than Nomad as I spoke. “He’s here with me now.”

She sounded satisfied. “Excellent. We’ve contacted Viggora, and he’s discovered where Sliske’s keeping the object. There’s an entrance to the place just southeast of the Barrows enclosure. You and Nomad head there, and we’ll be shouldn’t be too far behind you. An hour at most.”

There was a pause. The unicorn decided we weren’t interesting and resumed eating.

Moia’s voice was careful. “Unless you wish to confer with our Lord here, first? The suggestion to divert course was made in the interests of saving you time. We can remain in wait for you if you feel more discussion is needed.”

I caught the undertone. _Is Nomad a problem? Do you need us to contain him?_

Moia had always struck me as a curious blend of capable and inexperienced, but she wasn’t inobservant. I thanked her silently as I spoke. “Not necessary, Moia. We’ll make our way there and wait for you.”

I glared up at Nomad, daring him to argue. He didn’t, relaxed in pose and expression for the first time I’d ever seen him.

Moia’s voice issued from the device once more. “We’ll join you as soon as possible.” _Sit tight._

The device returned to my bag, I turned slightly and jerked my head in a more southeasterly direction. “I can get us there quickly, if-”

I’d made a mistake.

Nomad hadn’t been relaxed.

Arms from behind clamped me rudely to a chestplate and a violet-gold double-helix of ribbons enveloped us. The woods shifted into a visual jumble of greens that grew deeper as they righted themselves into Morytanian swampland. A saturated and rotting wooden fence surrounded the Barrows mounds beyond, and the music of crickets built and faded in perpetual canon.

I yowled, sinking bootheels into the muck and digging useless furrows as I backpedaled. “Get off me, you miserable fuck!”

“Not until you bloody calm yourself.” His gravelly voice held an undercurrent of self-satisfaction and humor. “I’ve taken us where we needed to go. You may _thank_ me at your leisure.”

I snarled, wriggling, tilting my scimitar and stabbing his boot.

Nothing. The _thunk_ was too solid and unforgiving for simple leather; they’d been reinforced with harder leather or metal.

_Shit._

Nomad laughed, a raspy bark of sound that set my teeth on edge. “I suppose that’s the most I can expect from you, ungrateful little monster. Perhaps you should take a moment to… cool off.”

With that, the armor-clad arms disappeared from around me as the chestplate support did, and I fell-slid into the soft mud with a wet slap. Mossy filth splattered to either side of me, and biting cold sank immediately through the thin leather I wore to my back, butt, and the backs of my legs. Breath shot from my lungs in a forcibly hissed curse.

_I didn’t kick you hard enough in that throne room. Next time I bury my boot in you, you won’t be able to play dead._

His gritty chuckle taunted me as I made several attempts to get to my feet, the deceptively green-coated ground smearing into useless mess with my scrabbling. Finally managing a kneel in the mud, I set my sword tip-down and prepared to stand, hearing the squelch of footsteps approach before a pair of wet, filthy boots introduced themselves to my field of vision.

I looked up and was greeted by an outstretched, gloved hand. The hand was attached to a forearm within an arm guard, which was in turn attached to an upper arm encased in another guard bearing an ugly, faintly glowing pink gem. The upper arm was attached to Nomad.

I trailed the sequence of objects with my eyes, and then again, certain I’d mistaken a connection somewhere.

My eyes hadn’t deceived me. Nomad was offering a hand. I blinked up at him.

His eyes were alight with humor as much as soul magic. “So, have you and the ground determined which of you is older?”

I lifted my free hand and extended a finger in a rude gesture. “We’ve reached consensus. Trophy’s yours.”

He snorted, shaking his head and locking gazes with me again. “As much as the sight of the almighty World Guardian kneeling before me delights me no end, we haven’t time for you to nurse your wounded pride. Take my hand.”

I desperately wanted to hurl another insult at him, but he was right. I took the hand.

He pulled as I struggled up and my foot slipped in the muck. I dropped my sword, fingers hooking into the metal ribs of his chestplate and finding purchase as his staff arm pressed into my back.

We looked less like a pair of Zamorak’s chosen elite and more like a couple sharing a passionate dance, armor and mud in place of court finery, sludge in lieu of a ballroom floor.

I’d dropped my scimitar. And grabbed Nomad. Clearly, my survival instincts were terminally misaligned and I had no hope of surviving this mission.

_Okay. Let’s take our hands off the dangerously unhinged soul eater, shall we?_

I did, my traitor’s feet set less precariously in the mud as I slid my fingers out from between the curved slats of metal and loosened my grip on his gloved hand. His hand remained secure around mine, however, and I looked up at him in puzzlement.

 _Too close. Way too close._ This was his chance for easy revenge. I was vulnerable and weaponless.

He stared down at me with an uncharacteristic expression of patience. “Your weapon.”

My mind blanked. _My weapon?_ _Yes, I need that to kill you before you kill me._ Something wasn’t adding up and I wasn’t sure what it was. _Which you should be doing any second now._

He nodded toward the ground. “You’ll need it. It won’t serve you if it’s buried in swampland.”

I crouched carefully and pulled the sword from the mud, twisting it and flinging a loose clump of saturated gunk from the end as I stood. Filthy and cold or no, the slightly loose-in-the-guts feeling I’d developed in realizing Nomad had me at a disadvantage receded with a weapon in my hand. I let my other hand relax, and he released it and stepped away.

I watched as he rubbed his arm and glove over his tassets, leaving streaks of dull green and brown on the fabric. He snorted. “You’re filthy.”

The oddly gallant gesture from earlier tempered my response, but only slightly. “I can’t imagine why.”

Nomad turned, taking in our surroundings and eyeing a small cavern entrance nearby as I stared at him.

He was tall, too damned tall by my reckoning. It wasn’t quite as steep a difference as when I stood among the Mahjarrat at the Ritual Site, but he was impressive nonetheless. Murky, sullen light played with the shadows beneath his armor and accentuated the dark tracery of veins just below his skin.

_Just how old are you? Mud’s not talking._

He moved toward the entrance, and I followed behind while taking care not to repeat my intimate encounter with the ground. “You’re going in? We should wait for the others.”

His old condescending tone was back. “I see no reason to delay. The sooner we begin reconnaissance, the sooner I can retrieve the artifact from Sliske’s grasp.”

I trotted carefully until I stood in front of him, blocking his path to the cave and looking up. _“You_ retrieve the Stone? This is a group effort, Nomad. If Zamorak thought it was something you could handle alone, he wouldn’t have sent for the rest of us.”

He didn’t slow down, and I stepped backward until my back met the edge of the cave’s entrance. Rather than continue into whatever base Sliske had established here, he stopped and turned to face me.

 _Too close. What the hell is your problem, Nomad?_ I glared up at him and tried not to feel like a trapped animal.

He stared down at me, something inscrutable in his gaze. “Your wife.”

_Try it, you fucking fossil. Insult Astrid, and my knee will test how much feeling you have in that spavined equipment before you can blink._

I challenged his stare with my own. “What about her?”

The inscrutable look remained, but his voice gained the trace of annoyance. “Before, when you said you’d foregone an opportunity to say goodbye.” His voice lost the annoyance. “How long?”

An insect ventured too close and we both rose our hands to swat it away. My bare one brushed his glove, and I dropped it back to my side as he batted the bug with a swift wave. Ignoring the disquieting jolt that little contact gave me, I answered him. “Ten years.”

The silence dragged on as he digested my response. “I see.”

He turned, ducking into the dark entrance.

 _What the fuck was that?_ I watched his split cape stir trails in the dust atop the stone as he went in, puzzled and irritated. _It’s enough that I have to deal with Sliske’s mind games. What the hell are_ you _up to?_

He neither heard my mental question nor responded to me, and I left the edge of the cave to follow him.

 

……….

 

My eyes strained in the darkness, Nomad’s considerable silhouette marked around the edges by thin blue light he’d summoned to his palm. It reflected in glittering strands from wet patches on the stone on either side of him, but diluted rapidly to nothingness ahead and behind.

I was behind, and uncomfortable. Beyond the limited effective range of Nomad’s light, the walls and stone outcroppings became dark, amorphous images on a darker background. Twice I’d barely avoided stumbling by hopping over a protruding rock noticed only a moment before my foot would’ve bumped against it. Nomad was gaining ground and I was falling farther behind, but I didn’t dare trot to keep up for fear of falling.

Worse, I was becoming increasingly convinced that Nomad and I were not alone in the cave. I’d foregone asking Nomad to slow down for fear of alerting them. There were no obvious signs, no unaccounted-for sounds of breathing, no steps aside from our own, no rustle of fabric or brush of boot upon stone aside from those made by Nomad or myself, but someone was…

Oh, yes. Someone was here. I could smell them. Wet canine and something foul, like rancid old meat left to the sun.

A few strands of hair that’d come loose from my braid stirred against my neck.

I stopped, whirling, and slammed my head forward in the direction we’d come from. My forehead met someone’s face, and I discovered an interesting new species of headache as that someone - or some _thing_ \- growled bitterly from the darkness.

I dove into my rune pocket and summoned a sputtering, sickly light, illuminating the cavern and my stalker. Jerrod’s sharp-featured, gaunt face made me regret the effort. He was holding his hand to his face, blood seeping from behind his fingers and into his narrow beard. Cold, red eyes lit with murder as he took me in, then dimmed slightly as he glanced at the sword I’d redrawn.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I scowled at Jerrod as he removed his hand, revealing a bloody lower lip and gritted teeth. “We’re supposed to be working together. Is this some kind of werewolf joke?”

“Hordly.” His rich accent flavored the words with deep Morytania. “I vos tracking you to ensure you two had no designs of your own vith Sliske’s toy.” He turned slightly, spitting dark blood to the stone. “You overreacted.”

I took a deep breath, wondering how much wrath I’d earn from Zamorak if I returned Jerrod to him in fillets.

 _Probably too much. That, and he already smells like wet wolf. I don’t want to add_ decaying _wet wolf to this fucking headache._

I jerked my sword in the direction Nomad had traveled. “My ass I did, but I’m not going to argue with you. Let’s go.”

We moved side by side until the narrow tunnel widened into a larger chamber. Nomad stood by a stone plinth in the center of the room bearing a metal placard, blue eyes flicking between Jerrod’s face and my forehead. I lifted my hand, feeling slickness just above my eyebrow and wiping at it.

My fingers had blood on them. Perhaps head-butting wasn’t my brightest idea, but it’d accomplished what I wanted. I wiped the blood on my robe and joined Nomad by the plinth.

He declined to comment on our respective states and gestured toward the inscription on the placard. “There appear to be hints here as to which path to take. Conspicuous use of color.” He muttered something under his breath. “Bloody poetry.”

I moved next to him to look, but Jerrod snorted from behind us. “You vaste time. I can track vich of these has been used by scent.” He swiped his hand over his mouth again and lifted his head, inhaling deeply. His nostrils flared and his eyes pulsed with ruby light that spread deep into his irises. “This direction.”

We followed him through different tunnels, to different chambers. I tried to memorize the markings over the entryways - a hasty slash of blue paint here, a “five” symbol there - but between my travelling companions and the looming possibility of a Sliske appearance, I lost track.

Jerrod’s nose did well enough. We reached a new little entryway, smaller, with pulsing red lights beyond. I peeked in, noticing several masks from which the lights appeared to be sourced.

I also noticed several wights patrolling the corridors, eyes a dim and uniform green-gold.

_Hello, Sliske._

“I will go it alone through here. There is nothing in the chamber beyond my ability to handle.” Nomad stepped forward, and was stopped by Jerrod’s extended arm and a shake of the werewolf’s head.

“No. You vill alert them, armored as you are.” Jerrod’s eyes found me and he grinned, a grisly smile with blood-smeared teeth. “The little prey and I vill handle this. She is small and can duck beneath the lights.”

 _Little prey._ Of all Zamorak’s elected agents, Jerrod’s motivation for joining us was the flimsiest. Most held loyalty to the god of chaos, but the Morytanian man had accepted almost casually, admitting only boredom with the gladiatorial arenas. It made him a chaotic element, which was right up Zamorak’s alley, but it also made him the most untrustworthy.

And he made me bristle. I’d faced men like him before.

I didn’t want him at my back, but what were my options? Nomad?

_Right. Jerrod it is._

He swung left as I went right, both of us ducking beneath scatters of light emanating from wall masks. I padded carefully down the walkway, turning a corner and spying a wight facing a wall switch on the other end of the tiny room.

I leaped, reversing my sword and jabbing the pommel into the back of his head. The wight dropped bonelessly to the floor, and I yanked the lever.

A nearby mask powered down mid-scatter. Satisfied, I moved out of the room and continued forward, turning a bend as another wight turned to face me.

_Fuck._

The wight opened his mouth to alert the others, and I swung. He turned, crouching and reaching to his eyes with his hands, and the pommel-bludgeon served again. He collapsed with a soft whimper.

Another lever sat flush with the wall several steps from where I’d downed the wight, and I stepped to it and yanked it down with a partially-stifled grunt. It nearly stuck, but gave under the pressure with a muted clack.

I froze. No footsteps approached. I peered around yet another corner and saw no reinforcements approaching.

Slinking around in the shadows, the risk of getting caught never abating, wondering what Sliske had in mind with all of this, and yet…

_I think I’m having fun._

I grinned from beneath one of the dormant masks. I _was_ having fun.

Slowly, carefully, I moved to the last wight guarding a final switch near the room’s exit. I heard a muffled _thud_ from somewhere on the other side of the main corridor and froze, waiting for the wight to notice.

Nothing. Whatever these wights were to Sliske, they obviously weren’t selected for their powers of observation. I swung in a wide arc above her head and cringed inwardly as the pommel met her skull with a sickening crack.

She slid to the stones. I pulled the last lever, and watched as a door moved aside to reveal Jerrod.

In werewolf form. I nearly yelled before realizing the monster before me was the same gaunt man I’d freed from the cell in Ardougne.

A great furry paw-hand reached for a lever on his side and pulled it, deactivating the remaining masks along the central corridor.

He stared at me and _whuffed._ The huge, shaggy bastard knew he’d given me a fright and was amused.

My heart was still hammering in my chest from the shock. I wasn’t amused.

Nomad walked toward us between the now-defunct masks, lifting a dark slash of eyebrow at me. “This seems wholly unnecessary. Those undead hardly presented a challenge.”

I snorted. “I didn’t see you…” well, he _had_ actually volunteered, “...helping.”

He shrugged. “I did offer.”

Jerrod stepped up to us, lifting his head and sniffing in our direction. His wolf-face turned the word half to slurry, but there was enough left to be understood. “Intrrsting.”

Nomad looked at him. “What’s ‘interesting?’”

The werewolf shook his head and turned, watching the entrance from which we’d come and refusing to speak further.

I sighed. “What now?”

Nomad peered through the doorway, then stepped back. “We wait.”

 

………..

 

I slid down the wall to sit next to Nomad, resting my head against the cold stone. “So, why did you want to know?”

“Hmmm?” He’d tilted his head back as I had, eyes closed and the faintest traces of blue soul energy escaping from between his eyelids. He opened them now and turned to look at me.

“About my wife. Why did you want to know?” For the thousandth time, I wondered what the rest of his face looked like.

He rested his wrists on bent knees, looking back at the wall opposite us. “You don’t strike me as the type to fetter herself with commitments.”

Perhaps he’d meant it as an insult, but I was too tired to examine it. I stared ahead at the wall and smiled, recalling. “I wasn’t. The Miscellanian king wanted a regent to handle the kingdom until his son found someone of his own and bore a proper heir, and I had to marry either the son or the daughter to fit the bill.” The cold of the floor bit through my robe and I shifted, butt numb. “The boy was cute. Harmless. No hardness to him, no steel. We just didn’t… connect, but Astrid and I did even before I’d visited the castle.”

I aimed my smile upward at a dormant mask and flipped it off. “She discovered me passed out drunk on a table in some Fremennik bar, developing a mean black eye in my sleep. She woke me up, offered me her cloak because it was freezing, and taught me how to make clothes better suited to that miserable cold of theirs.” I slid one foot closer and let the other leg straighten along the stones of the floor.

Nomad shifted next to me, repositioning himself. “I see.”

I was too cold - and too irritated - to ask. “I’ll bet you do.” I sat forward and crossed my legs, tracing the gap between two stones with a finger and staring at it with feigned interest. “So what’s with the questions?”

I felt the weight of his stare as he spoke. “Curiosity.” His voice regained more of the old gruffness. “It pays to know the weaknesses of a potential enemy.”

Jerrod made a low sound, a mixture of snort and sneeze. I wasn’t sure how a sneeze could sound incredulous, but his did.

Footsteps approached from the corridor, and I turned to peer around the wall.

Enakhra, crimson-robed and armed with a scowl I was beginning to believe was permanent, walked ahead of Zemouregal, whose lash-like striations around the eyes made him look perpetually shocked. They strode behind Daquarius and Moia, both of whom seemed tiny juxtaposed against the taller beings. Behind the quartet, a sulky Khazard plodded and turned a sword this way and that, looking for all the world like a giant schoolyard bully with cruelty on the mind.

Nomad and I got to our feet, and I grinned widely at the tallest of our reinforcements, a new kind of defensiveness winding itself into my shoulders. “Well, if it isn’t the world’s most clichéd necromancer! Gave up pretense and bought a big, billowing black cloak yet? Got one of your undead school projects releasing ravens from cages when you walk in the room?”

Zemouregal’s lip lifted in a bad parody of revulsion. “Someone will have to translate. I don’t speak rodent.”

Enakhra’s scowl made room for puzzlement, her glare shifting between Zemouregal and myself.

The group reached us, and Daquarius’s mouth quirked as his unusual reddish-brown eyes met mine. “Bahir. What’ve we got?”

His grin asked the rest. _What was that about?_

I shook my head, hoping it looked meaningful. _Long story. Later._

Nomad spoke aloud before I could. “I believe the mechanism within can be disabled, but there are guards possessed of information that may be germane to whatever exists beyond the door.”

Moia’s voice was soft, pink-hued Mahjarrat eyes meeting Nomad’s blue ones. “I can handle the memories.”

He nodded, gesturing stiffly with one hand. “Let’s not waste more time, then.”

Zemouregal’s unpleasant voice was sullen. “And just what am I supposed to do here?”

Nomad growled as he passed through the entryway into the wide chamber beyond. “Whine, I would imagine. That’s the only skill I’ve seen you demonstrate with acumen.”

We followed Nomad, Zemouregal complaining furiously to himself. A wrought-metal catwalk groaned and sank slightly beneath our feet as we followed it toward a bridge bisecting the room. The wail of tortured metal scoured my ears.

Nomad raised his voice slightly over the Mahjarrat’s complaints. “Tread cautiously. If anything in this room is sound-activated, that petulant noise is going to bring us to its attention.”

I snorted, a wild urge to pat Nomad on the arm surging and passing unrealized.

We stepped off the catwalk and onto the bridge with visibly shared relief before facing the wide set of doors. A pair of Sliske’s masks, one bearing a lunatic grin and the other an expression of misery, greeted us.

“Welcome! Welcome, you fascinating bunch!” The happy mask’s voice was a delighted replica of Sliske’s own, causing me to jump. “Seeking a solution to the next challenge, are we?”

“Oh, do can it with that endless cheer.” The surly mask, too, bore Sliske’s voice, but whereas the Mahjarrat himself tended only to parody emotion, the mask’s seemed genuine.

“Ah, you morose little thing, I fully intend to have fun! Besides, they’ve made it this far, haven’t they? I think they’re deserved of just a little forewarning, don’t you?”

The other mask sighed. “Fine. It’s not like any of this matters, anyway.”

The happy mask managed to sound even more elated. “That’s the spirit, my boy! Now, to business!” It wiggled slightly as it spoke. “Behind these doors, brave souls, awaits the very object you seek! But you must first prove your ability to work as a team. Can’t have a merry lot of chaos agents acting chaotically, now can we?” It laughed, nearly rocking itself from its perch on the door’s surface.

Its laughter subsided to a soft chuckle. “Two to balance the energies on the doors, two to keep the little problematic fellows just outside from descending upon you all, and two to find and harvest the memories of the guards. And here you are with plenty to spare! Well prepared, I say, and good show!” It gave a final laugh. “Good fortune, you adventurous lot, you!”

With that, both masks grew silent. I stared at the black and white energy pools on the door.

Low moaning reached us from four doorways at the farthest ends of the room, two on each side. I turned to Zemouregal and Enakhra. “Can you two handle whatever comes in?”

Zemouregal nodded. “I can, but she will have to tell me where to place portals. I can’t focus on more than two at a time.”

Enakhra’s scowl had returned, but her tone was businesslike. “I will do it.”

I nodded, turning to Jerrod and Moia. “Guards and memories? Can you two handle them alone?”

They nodded.

I looked again at the energy reservoirs on the door. “Nomad, take the dark magic. I’ll take the light.”

He _humphed,_ but stepped forward stood next to me. I heard Jerrod wander away as Enakhra muttered instructions to Zemouregal, and I lifted a hand toward the light reservoir.

Nomad’s hand lifted as mine did, and a twin set of light and dark beams met our hands. The magic - or energy, or whatever it was - felt both fulfilling and draining, somehow a sensation that enriched even as it stole. It was warm, beautiful… but hungry. I wondered how the dark one felt to Nomad.

Jerrod led a guard to Moia, who pressed her hands together in an image of reverential prayer as she employed whatever talent she had to retrieving the terrified man’s memory. Minutes passed, and she lifted her head and waved the man away.

He fled out the doorway through which we’d entered. They repeated the process with three more guards, each making haste from us after their minds had undergone whatever Moia was doing to them.

She looked as tired as I felt. Nomad still appeared focused, but his posture had lost some of its crispness and I noticed his arm shaking as mine did. Enakhra barked instructions in clipped tones.

“I need…” Moia sounded strained, “someone help me, please. Razwan, I need help.”

I looked behind me, but none among us seemed capable of light magic influence. “I-”

Nomad growled, his voice stern but weary. “Find someone to take this position. I will interact with the light magic.”

I barked. “Khazard!” His attention diverted from Zemouregal to me. “Take Nomad’s position.”

He did, his outstretched hand meeting the black beam in Nomad’s stead, and Nomad approached me. “Move.”

“Are you sure you can-”

“MOVE!”

I stood aside, losing connection with the beam, and the level of white energy on the door dropped.

He lifted his arm again. The white beam met his. The reservoir ceased sinking and remained steady.

_Well, that was unexpected._

Moia’s panic interrupted my thoughts. “Razwan, help me!”

I ran to her and she grabbed my shoulders over the kneeling guard. “Just… there. I can… do you see it?”

The strange, almost karambwan-shaped image harvested from the guard’s mind overlaid my field of view. I could see it. My eyes ached. “What do I do?”

Her breathing ragged, she leaned on me as her eyes pressed shut. “Bring it forward, lift it. Don’t move, just imagine the mind-tie moving toward you.”

I struggled, attempting to ignore Enakhra’s panicky shouts to Zemouregal. The karambwan-shaped “mind-tie” seemed to move, growing larger as though it was nearing my face, then disappeared.

I felt dizzy. Moia’s eyes met mine, and she smiled tiredly. “It’s done.”

Backing away, I saw the beams from the door terminate and the doors themselves wobble with a series of clacking sounds before swinging wide.

We stood together, a moment of worried silence descending on the group.

Nomad walked forward first, and we followed him through the doorway into a grand, circular chamber with a platform taking place of pride in the center.

No Stone of Jas rested on the platform. It stood nearly empty.

Save for Sliske.

 

…………

 

“Darlings, I thought you’d never show up! I was beginning to fear all my carefully crafted delights were for naught.” One gloved hand splayed fingers and wound them into a closing gesture  before settling at his midsection, and he bowed. “So good of you all to come. And to think my predictions were so accurate… I’ve accounted for all of you!”

Straightening so much as Sliske ever did, he gestured broadly in front of him. Shadows dappled the floor, lifting and coalescing into shadowy replicas of everyone present.

Everyone but me. I raised an eyebrow at Sliske. “Well, that was rather thoughtless of you. Where’s mine?”

Sliske’s grin was ghastly. And strange. “Oh, never fear, my dear. I’ve a card up my sleeve yet for you!”

His hands moved provocatively in the air, and he was swallowed in nimble darkness before disappearing entirely.

In a rare moment of clarity, I realized what he’d done. “The fucking thing is _here,_ and we have no access to it!”

Zemouregal spoke from behind me. “I can move you to the Shadow Realm.”

I turned as the shade versions of the party began to move toward us. “Then get fucking moving!”

The Mahjarrat’s hand rested on my shoulder, and the world _sank,_ colors and vividness bleeding from the chamber as everyone disappeared. It was darker, dimmer, the air itself somehow less than it was. I shivered, turning back to the platform.

The Stone of Jas rested atop the wide stairs, strikingly vivid in color despite existing in this life-stripped realm. The jarring difference between it and the surrounding stone rendered it almost unreal.

In front of it stood an imitation of me, nearly the same as the other shadow replicants in the real chamber save for a distinctly new feature.

The eyes were red. They didn’t glow, but stared at me with irises the color of fresh blood. Like the stone, they were too real in the shadow’s otherwise insubstantial atmosphere.

It leaped at me, swords whirling. I dodged, matching the butterfly pattern and erecting a wall of steel between myself and the replicant. We moved, circled, testing each other, the dance moving me slowly up the platform stairs.

It seemed to realize what I was doing and darted forward, but too late. I was within reach of the Stone of Jas.

I touched it, and was transported away from the Shadow Realm and my duplicate’s lurid eyes.

 

………..

 

Zamorak knelt by the stone, clawed hand resting on its surface. I shouted something to him but he seemed unable or unwilling to hear.

Bandos, Armadyl, and Saradomin stood nearby, alternating between pleas for Zamorak to abandon the stone and trying to drive him away with insults.

The weakened god refused them. He set his other hand on the stone and the world was again washed away, this time in a blinding haze of gold light.

 

………..

 

The chamber returned, the _real_ chamber, as the last few shades were dealt with by a familiar heat mirage-ripple of spell from Nomad. I stood with my hand on the stone, feeling the strange power fill me like an impossible dose of adrenaline. I pulled my hand away and jumped, startled, as Sliske reappeared next to me.

“So clever, my dear. Or, perhaps, you _believe_ yourself clever.” His hand waved dismissively at the party at the bottom of the stairs. “They can’t save you, and after all your hard work on Zammy’s behalf, he won’t be bothered with you-”

“-That’s where you’re wrong.”

Maroon striations spun around each other and fell away, leaving Zamorak in their place next to me, his robe vying for visual dominance with its lurid purples and reds next to the golden-white Stone. His red, glowing gaze remained on Sliske as he spoke to me. “The time to decide your allegiance is now, Razwan.”

My gaze left him and I glared at Sliske. “You know where I stand.”

Zamorak’s hand touched the Stone as it hand during my brief vision, and he lifted the other. Swirling blacks and reds built into a whirlwind in his palm, and I bled tension into a spin of the sword, limbering up my wrist.

Sliske’s face lost the artificial conviviality, looking alarmed. “Now, let’s not be hasty, my dears…”

The god’s hand shot forward as I did, spell and metal meeting Sliske in tandem.

My blade met something immovable, a bad strike. Whatever the make of Sliske’s armor, there was no gap where I needed one. The impact rang hatefully up my arm.

Despite the ineffectuality of my jab, the Mahjarrat sank to his knees, gasping, then lifted his head and grinned at us. “Terrible, both of you. I expected no less from Zamorak, but you, little dear? For absolute _shame.”_

His voice trailed on the last syllable as his hand touched Jas’s artifact, and shadows swallowed both.

They were gone. I swore. “That motherfucking miserable _jendeh-”_

A sharp cry of triumph interrupted me, and I turned toward Zamorak. The voice was wrong for the god.

It sounded more like…

Nomad stood behind Zamorak, lifting an oddly broken piece of the Stone’s surface over his head. “Enough for what I need.” His cerulean gaze dismissed us all in one sweep. “Pathetic, all of you.”

I ducked around Zamorak, panic squeezing my voice into something I didn’t recognize. “NOMAD, NO!”

He snarled, lifting his staff and throwing it, spear-like, at me.

I ducked before thinking, narrowly avoiding the dangerous projectile and grabbing the length of it as it passed. The surface abraded my palm and the insides of my fingers. I dropped my scimitar and lifted the new weapon carefully in my hands.

It felt like a breath held, a break in the natural progression of time.

Everyone froze.

I looked at Nomad, taking no care to hide the pain and frustration and everything else I couldn’t identify from him.

He stared back, eyes narrowed and searching.

I lowered the staff, dropping it with a loud clatter to the platform.

Nomad’s eyes lifted in the beginnings of crescents, a smile or a smirk. There was no disdain in it, but there was something in the expression I couldn’t define and didn’t like.

He teleported away, his weapon disappearing from my grasp along with him.

 _“Jendeh!”_ I spat on the platform where our goal had so briefly stood, then whirled around, snatching my sword from the stairs and loosing a stream of curses at the ground.

Zamorak’s sounded oddly pleased. “Go, all of you. We haven’t yet obtained the stone, but I am restored and refuse to view this as a failure. You have demonstrated your loyalty admirably, all of you. Return to Daemonheim and await me there.”

I began stalking down the stairs to join the retreating party, still hissing, but the god of chaos spoke again. “Razwan. Please remain with me.”

I turned. Zamorak watched as the others left the chamber, his focus returning to me once we were alone.

“You aided me in recovering my power.”

I nodded, clamping down the rage long enough to prioritize his words.

Zamorak’s face - no longer contorted in fury - was smoothed into something I almost found handsome. Despite my worry over Nomad, the god’s expression offered ease and I drank it in.

His voice, too, was placid despite its depth and the rumbling backbone of it. “Something strikes me. We need to address it.”

I looked up at him.

Nothing in his tone or posture changed, but I sensed he was almost saddened by what he had to say.

“You don’t trust me.”

_Oh, this is going to be fun._

**Author's Note:**

> An alternative sequence in the chamber, offered by Tribunus:
> 
> *imagining Sliske with one of those fucking protein shake bottles*  
> *like the backwards hat and shitty tanktop jesus christ*
> 
> he kickflips into the stone room on a skateboard  
> "what is up fellow teens"
> 
> *knocks back straight up protein powder*  
> *doubles over coughing*  
> *the stone's carried out while some of the wights are just prodding his powder-eating ass in concern*  
> *just that unimpressed head shake from Zamorak*


End file.
